Art and Authenticity

This is a Open Edition Book.

• Edited by Megan Aldrich and Jos Hackforth-Jones, with essays by Megan Aldrich, David Bellingham, Jonathan Clancy, Lis Darby, Natasha Degen, Anthony Downey, Sophie von der Goltz, Jos Hackforth-Jones, Barbara Lasic, Noël Riley, Bernard Vere and Morgan Wesley

• Art and Authenticity explores a range of questions around the ideas of authenticity, originality and replication in art. The authors move far beyond the fundamental question of 'Is it genuine?' to themes and definitions surrounding authenticity as a concept operating across different periods and contexts.The chapters consider empirical aspects of art analysis but also more conceptual and theoretical understandings of authenticity. For example, is there such a thing as authentic presentation and display of artworks? Can the idea of authenticity be applied to subject-matter and style? How do the art market and the art world respond to the perceived authenticity of artworks? This book addresses a wide range of topics within the arts and will appeal to a broad readership, from students and art specialists to art-world enthusiasts.
  
  Historically, the idea of scientific verification has arisen as a reaction against the perceived excesses of the connoisseurial tradition, a tradition which has fallen from favour over the last 50 years. The idea of individual 'expert knowledge' rests uneasily in the current climate. However, recent attempts by experts to develop definitive scientific methods for authenticating artworks are also proving to be problematic. Connoisseurship, it will be argued, still has its role to play within these debates.
  
  Therefore, through the broad range of artworks and perspectives developed within this volume, the book suggests that although the concept of authenticity is not without validity or usefulness, it nonetheless poses a continually moving target within the frameworks of varied cultural and historical constructs.The authors challenge a narrow interpretation of 'authenticity' as a concept applied to the art world, for the issues surrounding authenticity are rarely black and white.

• Contents: Introduction, Megan Aldrich and Jos Hackforth-Jones; Part 1: Material Authenticity; Chapter 1: Attribution and the Market: The Case of Frans Hals, David Bellingham; Chapter 2: A Dialogue of Connoisseurship and Science in Constructing Authenticity: The Case of the Duke of Buckingham's China, Morgan Wesley; Chapter 3: In Focus: A Venetian Sixteenth-century Costume Book as an Authentic Visual Record, Sophie von der Goltz; Chapter 4: The Authenticity of Traditional Crafts: The Case of Ernest Beckwith, Noel Riley; Chapter 5: Acquiring and Displaying Replicas at the South Kensington Museum, Barbara Lasic; Chapter 6: Authentic the Second Time Around? Eduardo Paolozzi and Reconstructed Studios in a Museum Environment, Bernard Vere; Part 2: Conceptual Authenticity: Chapter 7: Authenticity, Originality and Conceptual Art: Will the Real Elaine Sturtevant Please Stand Up? Anthony Downey; Chapter 8: Issues of Authenticity in Contemporary Design: The Smoke Series by Maarten Baas, Lis Darby; Chapter 9: Creating an Authentic Style: John Soane’s Gothic Library at Stowe, Megan Aldrich; Chapter10: In Focus: ‘Authentic’ Identities: Cross-cultural Portrayals in the Late Eighteenth Century, Jos Hackforth-Jones; Chapter 11: Passing the Buck: Perception, Reality and Authenticity in Late Nineteenth-century American Painting, Jonathan Clancy; Chapter 12: National Authenticity on Display? Exhibiting Art from Emerging Markets, Natasha Degan; Further Reading; Index.

• About the Author: Megan Aldrich is Academic Director of Sotheby's Institute of Art, London and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. She is a specialist in antiquarian interiors and the history of the gothic revival, and has numerous publications in this field, including Gothic Revival (Phaidon, 1994). Most recently she co-edited Antiquaries and Archaists: the past in the past, the past in the present (Spire Books, 2009) with Robert Wallis. Jos Hackforth-Jones is Director of Sotheby's Institute of Art, London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is a specialist in the field of portraiture and cross-cultural identities and has published widely, most recently in Edges of Empire: Orientalism and Visual Culture, co-edited with Mary Roberts (Blackwell, 2005). She was lead curator of Between Worlds: Voyagers to Britain, 1700-1850 (2007), an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, for which she also edited the catalogue.

• Co-publisher: Published in association with Sotheby's Institute of Art.

• • Imprint: Lund Humphries
  • Illustrations: Includes 92 colour and 14 b&w illustrations
  • Published: November 2012
  • Format: 265 x 228 mm
  • Extent: 208 pages
  • Binding: Hardback
  • ISBN: 978-1-84822-098-0